Prosecutors said in June that an autopsy showed that Lei suffocated on his vomit while in a police vehicle rather than dying from a heart attack, as noted in the police report. Police also sought to block an initial investigation into Lei’s death, prosecutors said.

Lei’s friends and commentators also have questioned why the struggle was not filmed — the officers said all their video recording devices were broken — and why it took so long for medical help to arrive after Lei fell unconscious. Lei’s family also said his head was covered with bruises.

[…] The agency also noted that the officers acted improperly not only by failing to promptly administer first aid to Lei but also by “deliberately fabricating facts, concealing the truth and hindering the investigation” in the aftermath, without giving details.

Yet charges were dropped because the officers “gradually confessed and repented,” the agency said. [Source]

Obviously, if you live in a nice house in Binhai with a BMW and a little dog, in your free time you twiddle your fancy worry beads, or else you go for a run and get your exercise in. You maintain a noble silence on any public incident you’re aware of. On the surface, you look no different from a middle class person in a normal country.

But this is a delusion. One explosion later, and the homeowners in Qihang Jiayuan and Harbor City discovered they’re the same as those petitioners they look down on, making the same moves: kneeling and unfurling banners, going before government officials and saying “we believe in the Party, we believe in the country.” This method has been used by countless petitioners—people from the counties who make five- or six-hundred yuan a month and receive chemical fertilizer subsidies. The homeowners realize, much to their embarrassment, that after an accident there’s really #nodifference between us and them. [Source]

To tell the truth, I didn’t at all expect the final verdict in Lei Yang’s case to cause such a stir. But it was all that my friends who were online on Wechat were talking about, to the point that one friend who’s an emigration consultant asked what was going on, because the number of people seeking advice on emigration had suddenly exploded … As for me, it didn’t seem all that earth-shaking, probably because I never expected anything else. [Chinese]

Human Rights Watch has for very many years documented police abuses, including use of torture against criminal suspects, surveillance of ordinary citizens, and unnecessary or excessive force to break up peaceful protests, as well as the harassment and arbitrary detention of individuals and group members who peacefully criticize the authorities or advocate for policy changes. Procurators and judges rarely question or challenge police conduct, and internal oversight mechanisms remain weak. The extraordinary power of the police is reflected in their enormous power over the justice system and the pervasive lack of accountability for police abuse.

[…] Human Rights Watch notes that in recent years incidents of police abuse such as the Qing’an police shooting, the death in custody of environmentalist Lei Yang, and the abusive behavior caught on tape of an officer checking the identity cards of two Shenzhen shoppers, have generated strong public criticism of the police force in China. The proposed revisions to the Police Law serve as an important opportunity to address those criticisms, and to make reforms that bring the law into conformity with international standards. [Source]

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. Some instructions are issued by local authorities or to specific sectors, and may not apply universally across China. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source. See CDT’s collection of Directives from the Ministry of Truth since 2011.